Page 10 of One Reckless Summer

That first moment I touched her, emotion surged through me, the same intensity as the first time I saw my daughter.

Those deep brown eyes watch me, and even through the alcohol I can see she’s no bimbo. The Daisy Duke stripper outfit aside, this girl is smart and alive. What’s a girl like her doing in Ompotomic, Michigan?

My mouth waters as she toes each of her boots off the opposite foot, then picks them up and sets them neatly next to her open suitcase.

“Isn’t this room great?” she asks, running her finger over a palm-sized, blooming pink rose on the wall.

I draw a breath through my teeth, taking note of her smile, watching her finger trace the petals of the wallpaper rose, imagining it tracing my lips, dancing down my neck, my chest, ending at the straining button of my pants, popping it open, then working the zipper down…

Lost in my progressing fantasy, I realize I didn’t answer her question.

“You’re in it, so yeah, it’s great.” That’s the truth, and from the way she’s biting into her bottom lip, something I said is working for her.

“You look a little out of place.” She steps my way. In her bare feet she’s a couple inches shorter than in the bar and our size difference is almost ridiculous.

My pulse hammers as I tell myself to step back and ball it out that door, but my feet are stuck rock solid on the pink and green rose-patterned rug.

I curse my moral compass, because all I want to do is drag this precious morsel over to that floral nightmare of a bed, rip off those shorts, and destroy that tart cherry like a wrecking ball.

I’d nut in three strokes, I’m sure. I’d fill her like a fucking bull.

“There’s a bed,” she chirps, with a little teasing sashay of her hips, and sweat trickles down my spine. Our proximity to a bed has my windpipe clogging with all the filthy things I want to say to her.

“Yeah, you should get in it,” I grumble, already knowing my heart has signed on the dotted line with this girl and the memory of her will haunt me to my grave.

“I should, you’re right. You should lay down with me. My big brother could tell me a story while I fall asleep.” She slides her hand down the flat of her chest, jiggling back and forth, and I can’t tell if it’s the booze or her just being a tease.

I bet it’s both.

“I should go,” I hear myself say as her eyes start to flutter, her head swings around on her neck like a bobblehead, knees buckling. Jesus, she’s passing out. I lunge forward my hand slipping around her middle as I groan and my eyes devour her fertile body before she hits the floor.

Panic sweeps through me. Once again, that thought that someone else could have come back here with her assaults me like a bullet to the chest.

Pulling her against me, her limbs are limp in my arms, her lips parted as fear ices my veins. “Daisy,” I hiss, realizing I don’t know her name.

I tell myself she’s just had too much to drink. She’ll sleep it off and wake up thirsty and craving a greasy burger, but seeing her in my arms, helpless and unconscious, has me as unsteady as I was that time Hailey dove into the swimming pool at her mother’s house and sank to the bottom.

This morsel of a girl is going to rip my heart out. That, I already know, and something else I know is I’d gladly let her, if it wasn’t for the promises I made to myself and my daughter.

“Daisy,” I say with more vigor this time, lowering her onto the bed on her side, tilting her head so that if that alcohol decides to turn her stomach inside out, she won’t choke.

I brush the backs of my fingers across her forehead, pushing a silky strand of that rich, coffee-colored hair behind her ear, cursing myself for buying her another drink.

God, I could take her right now. If I was a worse man, I’d strip her down to her birthday suit, spread her thick thighs and do as I please.

My fingers trail down. Over her temple, her jaw, traversing the side of her neck until I follow her collar bone to where her sternum begins.

Just a little lower and the billowing flesh of her breasts could be in my hand. God, I shouldn’t be here. I should have left her at the door. Or I could just beat off while she sleeps, leaving a surprise all over her tits and face to remember me by.

Jesus, the thought has me ready to nut right here.

A blip of anger smolders inside me. This isn’t fair. Meeting this girl, now, when my life is off limits to a relationship. What would have happened if she hadn’t passed out, and things…happened?

She’d expect more from me? Be a boyfriend and a good man? Fucking understand the nuances of a romantic relationship? I’m not even the drunk one, but I’m spinning and intoxicated. Confused and—

A smile crests her pink lips as her eyes flutter open, hazy but focused on me, and she says, “Guess you’re a gentleman after all. You could have done whatever you wanted with me…passed out.”

Jesus. This girl.

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